HARVARD REVIEWED.

The Oberlin Review publishes a very interesting letter from Cambridge in which the writer takes occasion to comment freely upon the present condition of things and recent changes at Harvard. The elective system is touched upon and receives guarded commendation.

"Harvard College at the beginning of President Eliot's administration," says the writer, "must have presented a rather inferior appearance, as judged by the buildings. During the last thirteen years about two million dollars have been used for building purposes. Some of the oldest halls have Revolutionary memories, but have not attractive exteriors. The lecture system so largely used, in part even in Mathematics, of course offers temptation to cramming; and that very much of this is done is not denied; but this is not regarded as wholly evil even by so competent a judge as the late Professor Jevons. Nevertheless many are unable to see much that is good in the process. The impulse, however, which is given to a large and wise use of the library, by the lecture system, is plainly to be seen and is of no small value. The mid-year and final examinations determine the student's rank. Attendance upon recitations is voluntary, but is more regular than might be expected. One is a little surprised to find that attendance on church once on Sunday and on daily chapel prayers is required. The corporation are unwilling to give up either of these requirements; although the majority of the faculty are said to favor a voluntary attendance. The behavior of the students at chapel prayers is exemplary. Their home training has undoubtedly made them realize that mere gentlemanliness requires this. In this respect the contrast with most bodies of Western students is not soothing to Western pride.

The graduate department of the university is not under any special direction and is made up almost wholly of the college's own graduates. Harvard offers little in the way of scholarships or fellowships to graduates of other colleges, Johns Hopkins here taking the lead. The wide range of work offered in the different courses ought to furnish great inducements to post graduate work, certainly to its own students.

It is difficult to give an accurate statement of the religious condition of Harvard University. Perhaps the recent account of the matter, which makes Harvard's religious condition about that of the world outside, is nearly correct. The faculty includes men of every shade of belief from the Agnostic and Pantheist to the Methodist and Baptist. And nearly the same thing might be said of the students, though I should be inclined to give credit to the report which represents the number of students from evangelical homes as continually increasing. The connection between teachers and students is much less close than in the West, and much less individual influence is exerted; but there are those who do exert a strong and thoroughly Christian influence. One of the best of these, it is rumored, Harvard is to lose next year; for her own sake I hope this will not prove true. The "Society of Christian Brethren," founded in 1802, meets weekly. The Harvard Total Abstinence Society has what ought to be considered a very small membership, but it is worth nothing that it exists, and recently had a public meeting at which ex-Governor Long and Rev. E. E. Hale, both alumni of Harvard, made rousing addresses. The use of wine at their tables by influential person in the University does not however help matters much. But one is glad to recognize some earnest advocates of total abstinence in the faculty."